Seth Lakeman – The Well Worn Path

Le Trio Joubran – The Long March

The View have announced that they are currently recording their 5th studio album Ropewalk which is being produced by Albert Hammond Jr & Gus Oberg (The Strokes), released on Cooking Vinyl September 4th 2015

Says Kyle Falconer of The View “I would say that this is the closest sounding to our debut (Mercury Nominated) album ‘Hats Off To The Buskers’ …We’ve kept this album quite raw whilst recording so that we will have the ability to play it live as well, if not better, as it sounds on the record.”

As they are about everything, The View talk a straightforward talk about why they chose Albert Hammond Jr and Gus Oberg to produce their vibrant, ambitious, rollickingly tuneful new album, ‘Ropewalk’. “’Cause he’s in The Strokes!” laughs bass player Kieren Webster. “And he seemed really hungry for it.”

“His dad’s a songwriter,” adds singer/guitarist Kyle Falconer, aware that Albert Hammond Sr was a hugely successful artist in the Sixties and Seventies, “plus he’s made lots of albums with The Strokes. So it’s like he knows songs inside-out. So it felt like a massive compliment to have him wanting to work with us. A lot of producers just like the actual sound, but he and Gus sat down and went through all the songs one by one. We’d never done that before.”

It felt like the right time to take that in-depth approach. For one thing, 2015 is the band’s tenth anniversary. It’s been a decade since The View exploded out of Dundee, a rag-tag teenage mob of guitar-scorching rock’n’rollers, buoyed by a brace of instantly anthemic tunes and a huge, loyal following. As singles like Wasted Little DJs and Superstar Tradesman stormed into the charts, followed by debut album Hats Off To The Buskers entering the charts at Number One and nabbing a Mercury nomination, the fanbase’s jubilant battle-cry was heard up and down the country: “The View, The View, The View are on fire!” The fans were as up-for-it as this famously hard-gigging, hard-partying four-piece.

“That time is a blur,” acknowledges Webster with a chuckle, while Falconer happily cops to their innocence. “We didn’t even know what the A-list was. Someone would tell us we were on the Radio 1 A-list and we’d be like, ‘great… what does that mean?’”

But they learned, quickly, on the job. They had to. Three singles from Hats Off To The Buskers hit the Top 20, with Same Jeans rising as far at Number Three. They toured incessantly, wrote constantly, and released four albums in six years. The View had come so far, so fast that they had enough material for a Best Of, 2013’s Seven Year Setlist. They were still only in their mid-twenties.

That line-in-the-sand compilation is another reason for The View approaching their fifth studio album with fresh purpose. With new management watching their backs – they’re now looked after by the same team who look after the rejuvenated Libertines – Falconer, Webster, guitarist Pete Reilly and drummer Steve Morrison decided to both dig deep and also, for the first time, cede some creative control to a producer.

Lead single Marriage is a case in point, its genesis pointing up the simple genius of their creative collaboration with Hammond Jr and Oberg,
“I’ve had the basis of Marriage for about six years,” says Falconer.

On ‘Ropewalk’, the sparkling results speak for themselves. Ten years young, The View are on fire all over again.